Welcome to Bette's Pages!

Hello reader! Thank you so much for celebrating the launch of my blog, Bette’s Pages, with me today- and I hope I’ll see you around in months to come. Why start a blog after all this time? Well to be honest, I’ve had plenty of blogging attempts that fizzled out due to one reason or another. School, homework, boredom. Lacking a consistent blog-writing schedule and the time to generate enough content to keep the page fresh.

I’ve pledged to myself that 2017 will be a year of action. I’ll be volunteering in my community more, giving back to the charities and organizations I love and who protect the people I love, pursuing professional growth, and diving into my passions and hobbies.

The one thing I’ve learned in the past few years since graduating from college- make time for your hobbies. I was in a slump after jumping into my job immediately after college with a few week’s rest in between. It was, for all of its fancy names and flexibility, a customer support role at a growing startup with all of the usual perks- healthy snacks, dogs roaming the halls, evening group events, and yoga bouncy balls. Going to work and coming home emotionally exhausted was a routine that I fell into unwittingly. I’d constantly be checking my phone for any fires, as the first line of defense for our user base. I could feel my own patience withering away.

Fast forward about two years, and I’m working in a role I could have only dreamed of, at a company that makes dreams come true. My days are sometimes equally as stressful, not because of the constant customer complaints, but of what I see in the news. More importantly, I still spend at least forty hours a week in front of a computer.

Now, when I go home at night, I don’t touch my computer at all. What I reach for, instead of my phone, is my planner and a cup of tea. Maybe a book if I had left off at a particularly exciting moment during my commute. I relax. My hobbies help me focus on myself and my well-being. Reading transports me and puts me in the mindset of different people, different characters, different monsters. Writing is a tangible echo of my thoughts that I often keep at bay during my work hours, that long to take form. Planning helps me unload my goals, my needs, and my wants. The reason I keep up my hobbies and find them so fulfilling is simply this: Self-care.

This blog is a reflection of my Instagram account (@bettes.pages), but lets me open myself up a bit more to you, my readers and followers and friends. What you can expect are bookish photos and spoiler-free reviews, the confessions of a book and stationery shopaholic, and the occasional crafty inspiration. I’m a bookworm, an aspiring writer, and a committed global citizen. I invite you to share your thoughts under each blog post if it speaks to you, and more importantly, ask me questions! I don’t hope to inspire anyone. I hope to BE inspired every day- by you, by the moments around me and in the pages I read.